
LETTER 



TO 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR, 



e 



ON 



THE APPROACHING STATE ELECTION, 



AN OLD CONSERVATIVE. 



-^ K v\ xG^ r K o,N>x T-o.^ -^ revj . 



SECOND EDITION. 




BOSTON: 
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 

111 Washington Street. 
1855. 

.Ax 



■^o^ 



^^K 



m 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1855, by 

CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE : 
METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITT. 



LETTER 





A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 



My Good Friend : — 

Since the year 1848, you and I have voted with different parties. 
That has perhaps been the main difference between us. You 
have always said that you were as wide awake to the usurpations of 
the Slave Power as I was, and as heartily opposed to them. You 
have said — and I never doubted your honesty — that in your opinion 
the best way to resist them was to adhere to the Whig party, which, 
in Massachusetts at least, was always professing and promising so 
well. I did not think so, because I did not find that those profes- 
sions and promises proved to be good for anything when the time 
for action came. So we have continued to differ, but we have re- 
spected each other, and have never quarrelled. 

After the Whig Convention at Worcester on the 2d of this month, 
I sat down to write out for you some of my thoughts respecting it. 
In its proceedings I found ample matter for indignant comment, 
and I wrote some sheets in that vein. But I throw them aside, and 
start afresh. As the election approaches, pregnant with such mo- 
mentous issues, I find myself in no mood for that sort of comment. 
I dismiss, as far as possible, the thought of men, and of their follies, 
calumnies, and tricks, and address myself solely and calmly to the 
public question which is pending. 

A little recapitulation is necessary, to show how it stands. The 
displeasure of good and considerate people has for many years been 



^ 



4 LETTER TO 

roused by the gross usurpations of the Slave Power. The aspirants 
and managers of both the old parties have been forced, more or less, 
to consider that state of feeling, for fear of losing their adherents. 
Those of your Whig party, in particular, were accustomed to use 
strong anti-slavery language in their speeches, letters, and resolutions 
at public meetings. This practice, it seems, is henceforward to be 
discontinued ; " We have no outsiders to catch to-day," said one 
of your orators at the late Convention, comparing it with previous 
meetings of the same kind ; " we have no baits to throw to any 
gudgeons." But for a while it proved effective, and more or less 
vigorously, according as changing circumstances permitted or re- 
quired, was pursued down to the eve of the very last annual 
election, when, in great stress of politics, the Whig party in conven- 
tion solemnly resolved " that we are unalterably opposed to the 
extension of slavery over one foot of territory now free ; that we 
will seek the immediate and unconditional repeal of so much of the 
Nebraska and Kanzas acts as annuls the Missouri Compromise, 
and that we will oppose the admission into the Confederacy of any 
new State, formed out of any of our territorial possessions, unless 
Slavery is prohibited therein." The smooth-faced Whig State Com- 
mittee, in its call for this Convention, had announced it to be " among 
the grave matters for its consideration," " whether we can now 
satisfy ourselves with the simple restoration of that which has been 
torn down, or whether we ought not to resolve upon some further 
action, having for its object not merely the recovery of the ground 
lost for a time to freedom, but the erection of impregnable barriers 
against the extension of Slavery and against the unceasing assaults 
of the Slave Power." 

During the years of the reign of this policy, great uneasiness was 
occasioned in the Whig party by the action of its leaders on the 
Annexation of Texas, — the beginning of our present sorrows, — 
the war with Mexico, and other kindred proceedings of that time ; 
and when, in the Presidential election of 1848, that party seemed to 
be playing directly into the hands of the Slave oligarchy, many of 
its old friends at the North seceded. No sooner was that question 
settled by the choice of a Whig President, than Mr. Root's resolu- 
tion for protecting freedom in the new territories was voted down 
in the Federal House of Representatives, with a great preponderance 
of influence, on the part of the Whig members, even of the delega- 
tion from Massachusetts, in favor of that disposition of it. In the 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 5 

next following month, the distinguished Whig Senator from Massa- 
chusetts gave in his adhesion to the Compromise Measures, so called, 
including the Fugitive Slave Bill. And the National Whig Conven- 
tion, which met two years after, resolved, the Massachusetts delega- 
tion assenting, that they accepted that series of measures as a final 
settlement of the Slavery question. 

The strong anti-slavery resolution of the Whig State Convention 
of last year was, you remember, passed at a time when Northern 
feeling seemed roused to a high pitch by the perfidious repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise of 1820. But it was too late for this sort of 
language from that quarter. It had been a pretty device in its day ; 
but it was worn out. By too sore experience, too many long-trusting 
people had had their eyes enlightened to see through it. And at 
the election last November, only twenty-seven thousand voters, out 
of the fifty or sixty thousand of old times, came up to the help of the 
Whig skeleton against the mighty. Power slipped out of its hands, 
and did not leave a wreck behind. Among more than four hundred 
members of a government in which almost from time immemorial 
it has reigned supreme, it had but a single representative. 

Among the scores of invisible thousands who accomplished this 
extraordinary coup de main, everybody knows that there were large 
numbers not themselves enrolled in the organization for whose can- 
didates they voted, and other large numbers, who, though they 
adopted its distinguishing principle, in their hearts laid yet more 
stress on that of opposition to the Slave Power. I have no defence 
to make of that organization. Besides regarding its ostensible basis 
of association as utterly illiberal and anti-republican, I cannot allow 
that there is any place for a secret political society under a free 
government. And to me it appears that the dangerous tendency of 
such clubs — obvious enough to reflection, without history — has 
been amply proved in the deplorable experience of the ancient re- 
publics, and of France sixty years ago. There is the still further 
weighty objection against it, that, at a critical moment in our poli- 
tics, it paralyzed and baflled the anti-slavery spirit in the Free States, 
which otherwise, under the new provocation of the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, would have borne down all before it. But 
to men who, year after year, had seen that the political course dic- 
tated by their judgment and conscience was only to be taken at the 
peril of social ostracism, or, still more, who had found or believed 
that to vote against the party of a rich employer was to vote away 



6 LETTER TO 

the living of their families, and who, when they had once secured a 
Secret Ballot law, had seen it swept away at the next turn of the 
political wheel, it must be owned that there was some temptation to 
look for freedom and security in a secret combination. 

A year passes, and after the chaotic dissolution and mixture the 
elements move to shape and combine themselves anew. There has 
been only one grave question before these United States these dozen 
years, and to that, after any temporary interruption, eveiy thing 
presently returns. Whigs who did not go to the polls last year, or 
who were just induced to cast a Whig vote once more by the re- 
newed strength of Whig anti-slavery profession, conclude that the 
time has fully come for action in accordance with what they have 
long professed and believed. Men of the recently victorious party 
entertain the sober second thought, and agree that there is one, and 
only one, intolerable evil impending over the country. And both 
come together with whoever else accords with them in opinion 
and purpose on the overshadowing question of the time, and agree 
to forget their old names and differences, and band themselves to- 
gether, and with patriots of other States, in one party, to labor for 
the salvation of the country. 

They came together in convention, and the result was what the 
times, and their duty to the times, required; no more and no less. 
Can anything of the kind be better than their Address and Resolu- 
tions, — more dignified, true, patriotic, weighty ? They recognize 
and expose the great fact which every day makes harder to dispute 
or to keep out of sight, — of the immense wrong and disgrace which 
the people of this republic are even now suffering, and the extreme 
danger, in the future, to which they are exposed, from a despotic 
power, residing in one or two hundred thousand voters, which has 
erected itself on the institution of chattel slavery in a part of the 
States. In grave and well-weighed words, they rightly represent 
the vital question of the day to be, the continuance of " the exist- 
ence of freedom " ; and for the purpose of settling that question, 
and till that question is settled, they invite patriots to desist from 
other strifes, and concentrate their action upon this. " Slavery, in 
its national relations, is the great political question of our times. 
Slavery, within the Slave States, is a matter of State control, for 
which we have no constitutional political responsibility. But an im- 
perious necessity has made slavery, in its relations to the nation and 
to the Free States, a question of practical, immediate, and para- 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 7 

mount importance." " The Slave Power controls every department 
of the government. The question is not the abolition of Slavery, 
but the existence of freedom." Is there any such thing as disputing 
a word of all this .? Whatever selfish or deluded men may pretend 
or believe, or whatever some sensible and well-intentioned men un- 
der some strange hallucination may dream, do you doubt, any more 
than I, that the whole of it is literally and terribly true ? 

After the total rout of the Whig party in Massachusetts last year, 
there seemed nothing for it except retreat from the field, or else a 
complete change of tactics. Till quite recently, the general expec- 
tation perhaps was, that the former course would be adopted ; the 
rather, as the Whig party was known to have disbanded itself in the 
Southern States, and to keep up a sort of organization only in three 
or four States of the North, — in short, to have ceased to be a na- 
tional party, and to have become a " geographical " one in a very 
narrow sense. 

The first indication known to me of a different policy in Massa- 
chusetts was in the argument of " A Young Hunker," published in 
the Boston newspapers two months ago. With some of the views of 
this writer, — understood to be one of the most able and respected 
members of the Whig party, and a gentleman sincerely opposed, 
according to his own view of the case, to the Slave Power aggres- 
sions, — I certainly do not accord. But it seems to me that, if there 
was any hope for that party of recovering their lost confidence and 
consequence, it was by following his advice. He recommended 
to them, as I understand him, to stick to their professions, and 
carry them out in action. " The party," he said, " has taken high 
ground " in respect to some of the usurpations of Slavery ; " it is 
fairly committed ; it cannot recede ; if more explicitness is requisite 
to express what are the real sentiments of three fourths of the mem- 
bers of the party, let it be given." With the idea of " fusion " 
correctly understood, he expressed no reluctance " to give the sub- 
ject a fair, a just, and an enlightened consideration." He intimated 
that " the form, the body " of the Whig party might have " become 
somewhat decrepid," perhaps might " be laid aside " ; possibly 
" needed an infusion of youthful vigor." He even went so far as to 
suggest, though with caution and delicacy, that it might not be the 
worse for discharging some of its leaders. 

But unfortunately, — I think we should rather say fortunately^ 
considering the embarrassments which, from its past history, would 



8 LETTER TO 

have continued to cripple the Whig party, however renovated and 
reformed, for the service of freedom, — different counsels prevailed, 
and an opposite policy took its form and pressure at the late Con- 
vention. I do not assume that all who voted for the Resolutions of 
that Convention approved or understood them. I know too well in 
what manner this part of the business of conventions is transacted, 
to take anything of that kind for granted. The Resolutions were 
concocted, and the tenor of the rest of the proceedings arranged, 
by some officious gentlemen in and about Boston. Before the Con- 
vention met, one of the Boston newspapers gave a quite accurate 
account of what it would do. But, at all events, the Resolutions 
which appear to have been adopted, and the speeches which are said 
to have been applauded, must stand at present for the sense of the 
Whig party of Massachusetts. 

And what I have to say upon it in the first place is said in a word. 
It is, that these Resolutions show that the Whig party of Massachu- 
setts — that is, what is left of it, and shall hold together to the next 
election — is far on the %oay to democracy ; by which word, for 
present use, I mean, pro-slavery democracy, administration democ- 
racy. Pierce democracy. 

Yes, my friend, unless all signs fail, if you conclude to hold on to 
the skirts of this Whig Convention, you are presently to find your- 
self embarked in a coalition with the party which, your whole life 
long, you have been professing to oppose. Your leaders no longer 
disguise from you this tendency. Mr. Hillard said that the Demo- 
cratic party had " got hold of the idea of nationality," and that *' in 
the long run the party which rests upon the national heart of the 
people " would prevail ; that " conservative men, by a natural reac- 
tion " from what he calls " superabundant anti-slavery zeal," would 
" take refuge with the Democratic party." And the last Resolution 
foreshadows " a union of national patriots in all parts of the land to 
rescue the great interests of the country from the assaults of sec- 
tional fanatics." All which language, in the connections in which 
it is used, is perceived by discerning persons to import that the 
Whig politicians, speaking through this Convention, are presently to 
be seen striking hands with Mr. Pierce, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Cush- 
ing, in a Northern confederacy for Slavery against the freedom of 
the North. They wifl not say so. Some of them will not think so, 
just yet. But just as surely as day follows day, and effect comes 
after cause, that is precisely what their present movement will be 
seen before long to amount to. 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 



Of the six Eesolves of the Convention, the first two merely set 
forth the patriotism and independence of the Whig party, and con- 
tain nothing noteworthy, except the coolness of the declaration that 
the party has " no steps to retrace " ; a statement in which the 
reader who compares it with the Resolves of last year will assuredly 
find food for thought. The third Resolve passes lightly over the 
tender point, " that the ensuing election is pre-eminently a matter 
of State interest, and has no immediate connection with national af- 
fairs," and hints, rather than makes, the usual promise of parties out 
of power, to reduce the State taxes. 

So ends the first half of the series. The second makes three 
points, — one against the " Personal Liberty Law " of the Legisla- 
ture of this year, another against the " Maine Liquor Law," and the 
last proscribes " a Northern party, based upon the single issue of 
opposition to Slavery," and suggests that project of a full coalition 
with the Slave Power to which I just now referred. For the writers, 
the series of Resolutions " bore a precious jewel in its " tail. 

The last of the three is the only one which has to do with the 
Republican party. As far as concerns that party, the two other 
Resolves only beat the air. The Republican party was not in power 
when the laws in question were enacted. It has assumed no respon- 
sibility, and taken no stand, in relation to them. A fundamental 
principle in its articles of union is, " We require no conformity of 
opinion on other subjects of national or State policy " besides resist- 
ance to the Slave Power. Its members will probably differ respect- 
ing those laws, as the members of other political organizations have 
done heretofore. The Whig Convention does not pretend, or does 
not dare, to disclaim for its members all agency in procuring the 
passage of the " Maine Liquor Law " ; it speaks of its having been 
" passed in the hope, by the friends of temperance, that it would 
suppress the deadly vice of drunkenness." 

As to the " Personal Liberty Law," the way in which plausible peo- 
ple treat the question of a man's liberty in Massachusetts, the indiffer- 
ence with which they regard a pretended law of the United States, 
by force of which (if that made any difference, as it does not) 
you or I, your children or mine, might be carried into slavery, as 
well as the blackest menial we employ, is what I cannot look at 
without amazement. In this gloating over the assumed helplessness 
of a poor fellow pounced upon in Massachusetts by somebody who 
truly or falsely says that he gave money for him, — this triumph in 
2 



10 



LETTER TO 



denying him that chance for what is dearer than life, which might 
be found in the judgment of twelve jurymen, — there is something 
to my mind inexpressibly horrible. That men who entertain such a 
feeling can not only hold up their heads in good society, but even 
claim to be its representatives and oracles, is a thing that, with my 
old notions and memories, merely mystifies me, when I think of it. 
Nor is the doltish inhumanity more surprising than the insensibility 
to personal disgrace. The simple truth is, at this moment, that if 
an affidavit comes from Georgia that A. B. has escaped from ser- 
vice there, and somebody can be found to testify that I am A. B., 
and an irresponsible Commissioner — the second-hand creature of 
nominees of the Slave Power — chooses to say, for the fee of ten 
dollars, that he believes his testimony, I must go to Georgia, to be 
put in a jail to be whipped and on an auction block to be sold, and 
there is no remedy for me whatever in the laws of my country, un- 
less the Personal Liberty Bill of Massachusetts is good law, and 
competent to my protection. Whether good law or not, if you wish 
to give effective utterance to your discontent at this state of things, 
and to provide means of relief, if such can be found, you must do 
what the Republican party invites you to do, that is, choose to public 
office wise and patriotic men, who know the worth and will vindicate 
the sanctity of freedom. 

In looking at this subject, some men seem to lose sight of com- 
mon sense, as well as of humanity and self-respect. In its fourth 
Resolve, what else does the Whig Convention do but invite the 
" bloodshed " it professes to deprecate, by encouraging any bullies 
who may claim to be " federal authorities " to resist in arms a 
statute of this Commonwealth, which, whatever may be in future, 
no judicial action as yet has declared to want any attribute of law } 
Mr. Hillard says of the Personal Liberty Law, " I call it treason.'''' 
What Mr. Hillard calls it, is a fact not without interest. A more 
interesting question would be, what it is called by those judicial 
tribunals who may have occasion to pass upon its character. It may 
be presumed that, at all events, they will not call it what Mr. Hil- 
lard does, until they have found a different definition for treason 
from that brief and explicit one which is set down in the Consti- 
tution of the United States. And if the Personal Liberty Lavt' 
shall prove to require revision, I, for one, shall feel much safer 
in committing it to the wisdom of a party like that now formed, 
than to one capable of treating it in a way at once so abject and 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 11 

SO truculent as is expressed in the fourth resolve of the Whig Con- 
vention. 

The first two Resolves take the field with bold front. The next 
three drum for recruits. The last contains the manifesto of the war. 
The Whig party assembled at Worcester will tolerate no organized 
resistance to the Slave Power. A party being formed on that basis, 
the Whigs will, in the last resort, enlist with Mr. Pierce's friends 
to defeat that party. Such, I think you cannot help perceiving, is 
the import of that Resolve, more simply expressed. Nor, I beg you 
to notice, is there anything in the series of Resolves which Mr. Hal- 
lett could not heartily adopt, except what relates to a separate exist- 
ence and action of the Whig party ; and even this must be regarded 
as merely provisional, when considered in connection with the last 
clause in the series. I defy any man to point out why, on the 
showing of these Resolves, a man may not just as well vote for Mr. 
Beach as for Mr. Walley. 

So much for the tenor of the Resolves. What new light was 
thrown on the purpose in hand by the letters and speeches ? 

Before trying to answer that question, let me say a few words on 
the Convention itself Considered as a representation from the 
whole Commonwealth, it is pleasant to know that it was a very lean 
one. The excellence of the music is said to have been unsurpassed. 
Twelve reed instruments, I hear it said, lent their added attraction 
to the harmonies of the regular Brigade Band. But more gentlemen 
of substance were willing to pay for the Convention's music, than 
were disposed to march to it, or to have themselves recorded as re- 
sponsible for the doings of the day. The committee reported dele- 
gates from a hundred and twenty-four towns to be present, — not two 
fifths of the municipal corporations of the Commonwealth. It also 
reported the number of delegates to be seven hundred and eighteen ; 
but when that number was brought to a test by the ballot, it turned 
out to be reduced to five hundred and forty-one, which, if five hun- 
dred went from the sea-board, as was boasted at the time, leaves 
only forty-one for all the rest of the Commonwealth. Without im- 
plying any disrespect for the capacity of the gentlemen who con- 
ducted the proceedings, I yet find it difficult to believe that the whole 
charge would have been committed to them, if the " weighty 
brethren," to use a Quaker phrase, had supposed that anything 
material was to be done. One naturally infers that one description 
of absentees stayed away because they did not want to commit them- 



12 LETTER TO 

selves openly with their old confederates, in the new enterprise, and 
another, because, having fully made up their minds to an ultimate 
transit into the Democracy, they saw no great use in the ceremony 
of a short call at the half-way house. 

Of the five letters to the Convention from distinguished Whigs, 
only that of Mr. Choate had any special significance. Mr. Ap- 
pleton hoped that they would " make such a demonstration as 
would convince the world that the Whig party of Massachusetts 
is not extinct " ; a hope so modest that it may perhaps be ful- 
filled. Mr. Winthrop communicated concisely and carefully an 
opinion which he has long been understood to profess. Mr. Choate 
let off a brilliant jet of fire-works, and concluded the exhibition with 
two shotted guns, — one against the Republican party as " a party 
without politics," the other against it as a " geographical party." 

The Republican party is " a party without politics." So said Mr. 
Choate, and so the parrots of the party say after him. As he wrote 
this to the Convention from his closet, no man will ever know whether 
he kept his countenance as successfully as when he told the jury that, 
if Tyrrell killed Mrs. Bickford, the deed was done in his innocent 
sleep. A party which undertakes to recover and protect the funda- 
mental liberties of the people against an encroaching despotism, is 
" a party without politics." I fancy I hear some wordy person ask- 
ing of the patriot party in the time of Charles the First, of William 
the Third, of the American Revolution, " What is its foreign policy ? 
By what measures, — by what school of politicians, — by what laws 
on what subjects, — by what diplomacy, — how, generally, — does it 
propose to accomplish that good, and prevent that evil, and provide 
for those wants, for which States are formed and government estab- 
lished ? " And I see " unextinguished laughter " shaking the sober 
sides of Pym, and Somers, and Sam Adams, at the fencing of such 
a queer antagonist. By Adams and his friends, the "one idea" of 
" no taxation without representation " was thought to be doctrine 
enough for a party which aimed for a long time to get its rights by 
peaceable methods, without saying a word about " schools of poli- 
ticians," methods of " diplomacy," or all sorts of laws on every 
variety of subject. And if a party 2vith politics is what the citi- 
zen is in search of, he must have a rare facility at being satisfied, 
if he takes up with the present Whig party of Massachusetts, with its 
recent six Resolves for its manifesto. 

The Republican party, says Mr. Choate, is " a geographical 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 13 

party." If it is, what is that Whig party with which he compares 
it ? If the one, just lighted and set upon a candlestick, does not 
yet shed light on all parts of the house, how is it with the other, 
which is just going out under a bushel, — one might rather say, 
under a gill-measure ? To speak of the Whig party now as " a na- 
tional party," in distinction fi'om anything that has party existence, 
is the very extravagance of balderdash. With no pretence of life 
in more than three or four of the thirty-one States, in not a 
single State south of the Potomac does the name continue to be 
heard except in discourses on the past. The Slave-Power party — 
strange as it may seem — was once a " sectional " and " geograph- 
ical party." It had its origin in the South, and thence spread widely 
through the North, as is seen at the present day. We mean that the 
party of freedom, which is to prostrate it, shall have a similar history. 
It must begin in the North ; — that cannot be helped, for at present 
in the Slave States a man cannot speak out free sentiments except 
at peril of his life. But we intend before long, God helping us, to 
have it spread the country through. Of the voters in the Slave 
States, probably not more than one in seven is a slaveholder. Badly 
as we of the North fare at the hands of Slavery, the case of the 
Southern non-slaveholder, under its oppression, is much harder than 
ours. By the ignorance in which he is kept, by the deception and 
intimidation practised upon him, he is prevented from knowing and 
asserting his rights. But that state of things is not going to last for 
ever. As the masses of the Southern people become more enlight- 
ened, they will become more zealous for the objects of the Repub- 
lican party even than we, because they will see that they have even 
more at stake. Whenever we shall place a Republican administra- 
tion at Washington, we shall give the Southern patriots, non-slave- 
holders and slaveholders alike, — for there are not a kw friends of 
freedom among the latter class, — a chance to speak out ; and that 
day will see the death and burial of the silly pretence that the 
Republican is a " sectional " and " geographical " party. We 
shall then be able to say, for the present, what Mr. Choate, in 
speaking of the Whig party, is already obliged to put in the past 
tense : " Our allies were everywhere, there were no Alleghanies 
nor Mississippi Rivers in our politics." There will be Cassius M. 
Clays, and tens of thousands of voters for them, in South Carolina 
and Arkansas. 

But I should do injustice to this argument by trusting it to words of 



14 LETTER TO 

my own. Let me rather copy for you the admirable summary of 
the Address of the Republican Convention : — 

" We offer no geographical or sectional issue. We adopt no 
principles which have not the sanction of the founders of the Repub- 
lic, in all the States, North and South, Free or Slave. We adopt 
no principles which Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick ^ Henry 
would not have gloried to see brought into action. We adopt no 
principles which conscientious opponents of the increase of Slavery, 
from all parts of the land, cannot and ought not to recognize. We 
act in no sectional spirit as to men. We are ready to vote for men 
from any part of the land who will act with us. We know that 
within the area of the Slave States themselves, are free men, not 
slaveholders, who sympathise with us. We know there are slave- 
holders who think as we do, — to say nothing of the three millions of 
slaves themselves. As to the territories and the future States, we 
know no geographical limits. We desire to see all the future States 
free, North and South. Secure Free States at the Southwest, and 
this will be no longer a geographical issue. Had our ancestors been 
true in 1820, there would have been Free States at the South. Had 
this generation been true, there would have been Free States at the 
South. There may yet be free States at the South, if we are true 
hereafter." 

And again, in the Fifth Resolve : — 

" We tender no geographical or sectional issue ; nor will we be 
deterred from our duty by the fear of one. The repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise has erased the geographical line. Our principles 
are national and general. Our spirit is national and liberal. We 
seek sympathy and co-operation from all parts of the land ; we look 
for members and candidates from South and North, East and West. 
Our principles do not justly lead to a sectional issue. If the slave 
power raises one, the fault is theirs, let the victory be ours." 

In the introductory speech of the President of the Whig Convention, 
I find nothing particular to remark upon, — the speeches of that gen- 
tleman lose so much when merely read, and bereft of the advan- 
tages of tone, countenance, and attitude. He duly laid out the pro- 
gramme, and defied and berated gainsayers. It is related of a 
clergyman at the South, who had occasion to preach when he had 
been ailing, that, on returning from the pulpit, his negro asked 
him how he found himself, and on receiving a favorable answer, the 
humble friend rejoined, "I thought you would feel better, master, 
when you had got so much wind off your stomach." 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 15 

The speech of Mr. Hillard was the great feature of the occasion. 
Mr. Hillard is master of a rhetoric capable, on the one hand, of very- 
attractive, and, on the other, of very offensive use. In private socie- 
ty, one cannot expect, and need not desire, to meet a more amiable 
or more cultivated gentleman. But in public discussion he takes 
excessive license. My pen refuses to copy his aspersions. You 
have read his speech, and you remember them. I shall not borrow 
from his vocabulary. I do not incline to rail like a fish-woman, 
thouah one of the best-mannered of men should set me the ex- 

o 

ample. 

The poetical heroics with which Mr. Hillard stepped upon the plat- 
form, are particularly out of place on his mellifluous lips. I lately 
saw a paper, — dated ten years ago this month, when the Texas 
annexation was in train, — to which his name was subscribed along 
with those of several persons, then as well as now peculiarly obnox- 
ious to Boston censure. We had not at all embarked " on the 
smooth surface of a summer-sea." Louder than then, the Boston 
winds have not whistled, or the tempests roared, in our day. And 
anon, with a shoal of pallid swimmers, Mr. Hillard was seen for- 
saking the ship, and seeking the shore. He did run well at first ; 
what did hinder him ? His purpose of integrity I never question ; 
but to resist such beguiling influences as surrounded and surround 
him, is a task for natures more robust than his. 

Nor was it more felicitous in Mr. Hillard to speak of his party's 
having " lost the disingenuous tricksters who are ever attempting to 
rule the honest men of Massachusetts by devices like that by which 
the Irishman drove his pig to Killarney, — by making him believe 
he was going to Cork." Why ! what but that selfsame ingenious 
journey to a pro-slavery Killarney have the Whig managers been 
compassing for years, — making their drove believe, by their anti- 
slavery outcry, that they were waddling the other way ? 

Mr. Hillard would persuade his hearers that an attempt to form a 
party upon the basis assumed by the Republicans " is utterly, hope- 
lessly impossible." We do not so read the signs of the times. We 
know by some experience that the difficulties are considerable, but 
the same experience satisfies us that they are difficulties of a nature 
to give way before resolute and self-sacrificing endeavor. If Mr, 
Hillard and those with whom he acts could defeat us, their alleged 
" impossibility" would, of course, be realized. But we have taken 
the measure of their ability, and we are not deterred from the at- 



16 LETTER TO 

tempt. We count much, on the other hand, upon the extreme exi- 
gency of the occasion ; and the recent course of things in Maine, 
Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, and other States, does 
not appear to us to favor Mr. Hillard's view. 

He thinks that the movement to organize a party for freedom, 
" will be to strengthen the Democratic party." We understand that 
suggestion, and it does not distress us. Why should it ? If men 
mean to oppose us in our action for freedom, is it not far better for 
us that they should do it manfully and above-board ? The bush- 
fighting we have in past years been compelled to has not given us a 
fair chance. We shall do much better in the open field. Pro- 
slavery Democrat against Republican, — we ask no better issue. I 
do not think that Mr. Hillard will be brought, without hesitation, to 
a direct support of the Democratic pro-slavery party. But the 
language in which he denounces us has a very settled significance 
in the circles where he is accustomed to hear it used. 

Mr. Hillard thinks that the Nebraska Bill would never have been 
brought before Congress " if Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay had been 
alive and in their seats." And yet nothing is more notorious than 
that the friends of that bill made their strongest point, when they 
alleged it to be a necessary corollary and sequence of the principle 
of those Compromise Measures which Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay 
had carried through. 

He proceeds to repeat the familiar fallacy that what we call the 
Republican and he " the Fusion " party, must of necessity be " a 
sectional party," a " geographical party," and then to present a 
most superficial and erroneous theory of the causes which have led 
to what he admUs to be the " aggressive spirit " of the South, — an 
aggressive spirit, by the way, which whoever would summon others 
to resist deserves, it seems, in Mr. Hillard's opinion, to be compared 
to the person who plies a knocker on the door of a family, " to 
wake up families ten doors off"." Is it some family ten doors off 
that requires to be waked up, when ruffians have burst the doors 
and windows, and are mining the foundations, of the dwelling 
where my own repose ? 

He thinks that the Republican party might not be subject to ob- 
jection, if it meant what it pretends to mean ; and that it is to be op- 
posed, because it does not mean that, but something different. " If 
it were in good faith the aim of the Fusion party to bring up the 
Free States generally to the constitutional standard of opposition to 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 17 

Slavery, where the Whig party of Massachusetts has always stood, 
there would not be so much objection to their platform and their plan. 
But that, although their ostensible purpose, is not their real," &c. 
Now, I put it to you, as a fair man, whether it is not prudent, under 
all the circumstances, to take the party's express avowal for proof of 
its purposes, in preference to Mr. Hillard's distempered imagination 
of them. I entertain no doubt whatever that the Republican party, 
at its recent Convention, said just what it meant ; and if you think 
so too, you have a sort of approval from himself for joining it. 

Arguing that a " nullification " of the Fugitive Slave Bill is now 
" the position of Massachusetts before the nation," Mr. Hillard 
asks, " What would have been the answer at the time of the South 
Carolina nullification, if she had asked for a modification of the 
tariff?" History will inform him on that point. We not only 
know what would have been the answer in that case ; we know what 
it was. The government gave way. Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay 
got together, and agreed upon a most essential " modification of the 
tariff," such as to make it satisfactory to Carolina. And that ar- 
rangement became a law. I am not defending South Carolina nul- 
lification ; I am but replying to Mr. Hillard's inquiry. 

Mr. Hillard comments on the character and action of the State 
Legislature of last winter. It was composed, almost to a man, of the 
Know-Nothing or American party. Let that party vindicate or 
shrive itself. The Republican party will be ready to give an ac- 
count of its use of power, as soon as it shall have been trusted by the 
people with it. Meanwhile, ]\Ir. Hillard has not been altogether 
happy in the selection, under this head, of his materials for a par- 
tisan argument. The legislation to which I understand him to re- 
fer, where he speaks of " the headlong spirit of innovation in which 
the great subject of marriage was approached, and the property re- 
lations of husband and wife were dealt with," was introduced and 
pursued to a large extent during the Whig administration of Gov- 
ernor Briggs ; and though I do not know what were the proceedings 
of the last Legislature in this department, I presume there is not in 
the books a statute involving a wider departure from the old doc- 
trines of the Common Law in respect to domestic relations, than one 
which was carried through the Legislature of 1842, under the aus- 
pices of Mr. Hillard's eminently Whig friend, Mr. Charles P. Curtis, 
then chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. 

Mr. Hillard holds that " such a party " as the Republican " tends 
3 



18 LETTER TO 

to create a hostile feeling between North and South." If it is a 
good rule that we may not stand for our liberties because the in- 
vaders of our liberties may not like it, he will do right to hasten that 
disbanding of his own party, and amalgamation with the pro-slavery 
Democrats, to which the action of his fellow-partisans is so rapidly 
tending ; for he insists that " the Northern Whig party has always 
presented a constitutional opposition to Slavery." Or will he say 
that only the unconstitutional opposition to Slave Power encroach- 
ments which he presumes to charge upon the new party is suited to 
give offence ? Was offence then never known to be given by such 
" constitutional " opposition as members of both the Whig and 
Democratic parties from time to time have made ? 

Mr. Hillard, like the rest of the speakers, sets up once more the 
bugbear of Disunion. Will the party whippers-in never have done 
with that melancholy nonsense .'' Can they expect long to satisfy 
men not idiotic, that the slaveholders themselves, for Slavery's sake, 
want to dissolve a Union without which Slavery would not live 
among them a year } Do they really dream that, if the slaveholders 
wanted disunion, their non-slaveholding neighbors — six voters to 
one in the Slave States — would let them have it } Do the know- 
ing ones, among those who raise the cry, believe a syllable of what 
they say and sing, when, at the moment that the cry was loudest, 
they bought and sold stocks at the same rates as before, the quota- 
tions of United States securities not being affected to the amount of 
a fraction of a mill by the hubbub ? And who are these gentlemen, 
who are distracted by apprehensions for the security of our institu- 
tions, and of what they protect ? Have they a deeper stake in the 
public tranquillity than men whom they arraign, — than Stephen C. 
Phillips, for example, or Charles F. Adams } Or upon what grounds 
hitherto known to the public do they pretend to a juster discernment 
of what the public tranquillity allows or demands, than is exercised 
by tried patriots whom, in their feeble flippancy, they presume to 
stigmatize as rash experimenters upon the public peace ? 

A point, much labored by the Convention and Mr. Plillard, was 
that " the present election is a State election, and has nothing to do 
directly and immediately with national issues " ; yet he is equally 
clear that " no national Whig can support the gubernatorial candidate 
of the Fusion party." If the one proposition were not enough to 
confute the other, what expectation, one naturally asks, can any 
party entertain of convincing the intelligent voters of Massachusetts 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 19 

that the result of their election is to have no influence on national 
politics ? Recking their own rede, the gentlemen of the Whig Con- 
vention, as national politicians, of course felt no satisfaction at the 
late defeat of the Republicans in Maine by the conjoined forces of 
Democrats and so-called Whigs, — the same operation which they 
are now arranging here, — nor on the other hand did the great 
triumph of the Republicans of Ohio in a "State election" this 
month occasion them a particle of chagrin. 

Not a few of Mr. Hillard's statements are of that vague and equiv- 
ocal nature, that it would lake as much space to attempt to prove 
upon them a meaning requiring to be refuted, as to refute them 
when that was done, " Massachusetts can do nothing, in its State 
capacity, on the subject of Slavery, which is not inconsistent with 
her obligations to the Constitution, and her duties to the common 
country." The phrases, which are imposing, may have clothed 
something, which, in the speaker's mind, was pertinent to the argu- 
ment. But considered as meaning simply that " Slavery, as a State 
institution, is not within our power or responsibility," this is equally 
the doctrine of the recent Republican Convention, which has ex- 
pressed it in just these -words, last quoted. 

Mr. Walley, who is said to have been meanwhile advised by his 
friends that the allusions in his morning speech to the autumnal look 
of the Whig party, and the approach of its autumnal equinox, were 
liable to be misunderstood, and that his recommendations of Mr. 
Rockwell for the office of Governor might be acted upon further 
than was convenient, tried his hand a second time. He had ac- 
cepted the nomination in the morning, before the announcement of 
the Resolves, agreeably to which the party expected to proceed. 
When they had been brought in, — so different from those of the 
last year, — he declared them to be entirely to his taste. His 
speech was no brilliant specimen of reasoning. He rose, he said, 
to say that in the morning he had been " overwhelmed with sur- 
prise at the honor " of the nomination. And why ? Not on ac- 
count of the singular state of facts to which he had then adverted, 
when, standing in the Convention which had just given him its clam- 
orous nomination for the office of Governor, he said, " If I gave 
heed to the suggestions which I have received all around me, 
I should respectfully decline the nomination," &c. A nomi- 
nation under these circumstances might naturally occasion surprise, 
besides raising the doubt implied by the speaker in the words, " If 



20 LETTER TO 

it is your wish that I should do your bidding." But the reason of 
the surprise which " overwhelmed " Mr. Walley was different. It 
was because he considered the nomination " a great honor and a 
great compliment." — He contradicted Mr. Hillard's notion about 
" action and not principle " being " the proper object of govern- 
ment," professing his own to be, " that never has there been a mo- 
ment since the existence of a government in this State, when the 
conduct of the people in reference to principles was of more conse- 
quence than at the present moment." — He had read " only this very 
morning, that the demand of the Garrison party is now for a dissolu- 
tion of the Union." It is not understood that Mr. Garrison and his 
friends have joined, or have it in contemplation to join, the Republi- 
can party, — a fact which seems to leave a link out in the close 
chain of the demonstration of Mr. Stevenson's " next Governor of 
Massachusetts." But he knows how to supply it. " We have 
another party," he proceeds, " which tells us that in order to pre- 
vent the extension of Slavery, it is necessary to ignore the Whig 
party ; that alone, they say, will answer the purpose. Sir, that is 

only the first step, and I forewarn gentlemen now, that, if 

they take one step in that course, they cannot stop anywhere short 
of the dissolution of the Union." 

" Loud applause," accoi'ding to the newspaper report before me, 
followed the utterance of this compact and convincing ratiocination. 
It naturally encouraged the speaker to go on with a further exhibi- 
tion of his powers in that way. " The simple question," the ora- 
tor proceeded, " now before the people of the Commonwealth is. 
Have you calculated the value of the Union, and are you prepared 
to surrender it ; or do you intend to stand by the Constitution of this 
country, and to hand down the blessings you have enjoyed, unim- 
paired, to your posterity ? If so " . Well, " if so," what then ? 

One might suppose the inference would be, " if so, then in Heaven's 
name stand by the Constitution of your country," &c., as you 
have just said you " intend " to do. But that is not the way it strikes 
Mr. Walley. " If ^o, let national principles alone.'''' And with one 
period more he sat down, adhering, in silence as in speech, to the 
resolution announced in the morning, " I will not take up your time 
with anything that is not good." 

Mr. Fowler of Amherst is said to have made a speech, but I have 
met with no account of it. Mr. Lord, Speaker of the last Whig House 
of Representatives, came forward with an " analytical and bold 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 21 

speech," as it was called by the Boston newspaper which reported it, 
to clench the nail which had been hammered home by the proceed- 
ings of the day. He had a right to count upon the enthusiasm which 
had been excited, and to utter himself without reserve or fear. He 
frankly allowed you and me to understand what the persons whose 
counsels he shared have been about for a long while past. " Un- 
til to-day, since some fifteen years ago, in this very place, I have not 
before seen the real Whig spirit roused, — that which has the ring 
of the true metal. To-day we are Whig, and we are not anything 
else. (Laughter and applause.) We have no outsiders to catch to- 
day, we have no baits to throw to any gudgeons. We stand to-day 
Whigs upon Whig principles, and we stand there or we fall. (Cheers, 
and cries of ' Good, good ! ') It does one good to see a regular old- 
fashioned political meeting, one based upon some kind of politics 
other than to see who can get the most votes in a scrub race. 
(Laughter.)" 

" Good, good ! " the infatuated assembly shouted and laughed, 
when the deceptions of past years were avowed, and cast off as no 
longer profitable. Let the managers of such a system henceforward 
go one way, and do you, a straight-forward man, go another. I 
hear Whig men denounce knavery in politics, and I fear there is a 
great deal too much of it in different quarters. But if any man will 
show me a more unpleasant phase of it than that which an orator of 
the AVhig Convention imputes to a succession of Whig demagogues, 
certainly I shall very much wonder at his revelations. 

With my views of the late Whig Convention, I do not think it ma- 
terial to discuss the character of its candidates. Its design was, to 
hold back as many as possible of the old Whig party from passing 
into the ranks of the Republicans, as fidelity to the often repeated 
professions of the party would naturally impel them to do. Its ef- 
fect, as far as it has effect, will be only to promote the election of 
Mr. Beach as Governor this year, and that of the Democratico- 
Nebraska candidate for the Presidency, a year hence. No man, 
probably, except the eccentric President of the Convention, imagines 
that Mr. Walley is going to be " the next Governor of Massachu- 
setts." Under the new plurality system, the votes cast for him will 
be merely so much support to the strongest competitor of Mr. Rock- 
well, just as the ten thousand scattering Whig votes in Maine last 
month secured the election of the Democratico-Nebraska candi- 
date, Mr. Wells. On the seventh day of next month, we shall 



22 LETTER TO 

know precisely how many Massachusetts "Whigs, favorable to such a 
policy, there are, and where they live ; and that will be something 
well worth knowing. My present persuasion is that the number will 
not be large of such as will care to keep up any longer the farce of 
a party which belongs to history ; but that most of the Whigs who 
have made up their minds to oppose Mr. Rockwell and the Repub- 
lican party, will prefer to do it more directly and effectually by voting 
for the Democratic candidate for the office of Governor, as many of 
them did for the Democratic President three years ago. 

If, however, I did expect to see Mr. Walley our next Governor, I 
should not fail to be extremely dissatisfied with the prospect. There 
is nothing about that gentleman to recommend him to the suffrage 
of men who think as I do — and as I presume you do — on public 
affairs. I observe an attempt to bespeak for him the favor of oppo- 
nents of the Nebraska bill, on the ground of a speech on that subject 
made by him in Congress, in April of last year. Have you read 
that speech ? I have. I do not care for its clumsy language. I do 
not care much for its muddy reasoning. But I do care very much 
for its abject tone. As long as the rights of freemen are championed 
in the manner of that speech, so long will Nebraska bills — and 
worse outrages, if worse can be — be repeated, though it should be 
to the crack of doom. "At that time," says Mr. Hillard, we had in 
the lower House of Congress a large Whig delegation, an eminently 
able and estimable delegation, and I say that the opposition which 
they offered to the Nebraska iniquity was as strong and effective as 
could have been presented by the same number of men from any 
part or party of the Northern States." On the 23d day of January, 
1854, agreeably to notice given on the 17th, Mr. Douglas was to call 
up in Congress his " bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska." Of 
course, during that terrific interval, all the patriotic Whig Repre- 
sentatives from Massachusetts, including those from Boston and its 
neighborhood, had their thoughts engrossed, day and night, to the 
exclusion of everything else, with the prospect of what has so dis- 
tressed good citizens, and so shamed the country in the eyes of the 
Christian world. I look into the newspapers for some transmitted 
expression of the profound solicitude with which they were agitated 
at that momentous crisis of affairs. And in a Boston Whig print of 
January 20, I find the following notice of a message just received 
from " the efficient I'epresentative " (not Mr. Walley) whom it 
names : " A telegraphic despatch informs us that the Secretary 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 23 

of the Treasury has so far modified his schedule, in his proposed 
alteration of the Tariff, as to take manufactured linens from the 
free list, and that he proposes to make it subject to the duty of 
twenty-five per cent, and that copper is to be placed upon the same 
footing with lead." 

Mr. Walley is one representative of the school of which that 
efficient member of the House was another. Meaner and tran- 
sient interests first, — the higher and permanent interests of the 
public last, if anywhere, — this is the most creditable scheme of 
political action which we are at liberty to deduce from the history 
of that class of politicians to which these gentlemen belong. 

Mr. Rockwell's position realizes the whole idea which I have un- 
derstood you to maintain of a patriotic public man. I, of course, could 
have desired that he had separated himself from the Whig party 
earlier ; but, if he trusted its professions longer than was reasonable, 
this was the error of a generous mind ; and for all of us Republi- 
cans, who were all once either Whigs or Democrats, the question of 
making the painful effort to break old party ties, under a sense of the 
obligations of public duty, has been only a question as to the earlier or 
later time. Mr. Rockwell's services to freedom, in both branches 
of the national Congress, have been eminent. From the first to the 
last of our recent troubles, — from the passage of the Texas Annex- 
ation Bill, when the ferocious clamor and abusive parliamentary 
practice that forced it through did not prevent him from interposing 
a vigorous argument against that stupendous iniquity, down to his 
brief but most honorable service in the Senate a year ago, — the lofty 
tenor of his public action has left nothing to be desired, except that 
rupture of his embarrassing relations to the Whig party which his 
upright judgment has at last decided on. 

At a time like this especially, you will wish to give your Governor 
a legal adviser of distinguished abilities and learning in the law, of 
unstained and unquestioned probity, of ample experience (judicial 
experience, if it may be), of calm judgment, and of habits of thought 
such as will not iead him to twist legal technics to the prejudice of 
our Massachusetts heritage of freedom ; — and a man of such attri- 
butes, combined in singular excellence, is offered to your suffVage in 
Rockwood Hoar. And as to other candidates of the Republican 
party who have been less conspicuously before the public, if I have 
been so fortunate as to satisfy you that that party is entitled to your 
support, I presume you will be disposed to vote for them, on the rec- 



24 LETTER TO 

ognized principles of all party oi'ganizations. That they have not 
hitherto acted with you, can be no reason for not giving them your 
suffrage ; they are acting with you henceforward, and it is a union 
of men hitherto divided, which must accomplish the recovery of the 
rights of all, or nothing will. 

But you do not like, you say, some of the associates with whom 
you will be connected in the new movement, if you join it; — you 
do not like them personally, and you do not like the means which 
you think, from past experience, they will be likely to pursue to 
compass the end which you agree with them in desiring. Suppose 
you do not ; — do you expect to find any party numerous enough 
to make a show at a State election, composed wholly of saints and 
heroes ; or do you expect to do better in this respect in either of the 
other parties between which your choice must be made ? As to the 
first point, if the newspapers say truth, the Boston procession to and 
from the Whig Convention was marshalled by a person who, in out- 
rageous defiance of law (Whig lawyers themselves being judges), 
held Boston in military occupation during an awful day, and who, if 
one fatal gun had been fired by the orders which he had threatened, 
and if court and jury had done their office, would infallibly have 
expiated the crime upon a gallows ; and the person who did not take 
the armed Crafts, and who did take, by his menials, the unarmed and 
unsuspecting Sims, was put forward to call the Convention to order, 
and then placed at the head of one of the District Committees in 
charge of its affairs for the year ; and I doubt whether you are pre- 
pared to say that it belongs to the party that sought these associations 
to be very choice about its company. As to your not liking this and 
that part of the past tactics of this and that man with whom you 
would meet in the new party, no more, to be frank, do I. But if you 
will vote with no man, or no leading man, whose past measures and 
course you disapprove, I suppose it must follow that you will cease 
to be a voter. The Republican party, just starting into being, is not 
responsible for any past errors or faults of any persons, conspicuous 
or otherwise, who enroll themselves in its ranks. In its composi- 
tion, — comprehending, as one large element of the union, persons 
in whom hitherto you have been accustomed to place confidence, — 
you seem to have every reasonable assurance that its joint measures 
will be as well considered as its principles and aims are patriotic. 
And by personally connecting yourself with it, you will place your- 
self in a position to use all your legifimate influence to keep it clear 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 25 

from any malpractice which reasonably or causelessly you may 
apprehend. 

" The Repuhlican Party.'''' Mr. Hillard thinks that we have no 
more right to take that name, than " the Reverend Mr. Williams has 
to the honors and dignities of Louis XVII." With our understanding 
of the case, on the contrary, the name seems to belong to us in the 
most precise and special propriety of application. According to its 
written Constitution, this nation is a Republic. But under the forms 
of that Republic, an Aristocracy has grown up in the nation, con- 
sisting of a few scores of thousands of holders of slaves, and has 
strengthened itself by cunning arts and gradual invasions till at 
length it has usurped all the powers of the Federal authority ; till, 
under that authority, no law can be passed and no officer ap- 
pointed, except agreeably to its sovereign will ; till, having dispos- 
sessed the rest of the people of their rightful share in administration, 
it turns upon them with its whole stolen force, to insult and oppress 
them as far as its present purposes may require ; and the indignities 
and wrongs which we suffer already give vague but appalling notice of 
what more may be in store for ourselves and our children, while the 
name of republican liberty in America goes the way that it has gone 
in other states and times. We cast votes for Presidents of the Unit- 
ed States ; but the concentrated strength of the Slave Power, repre- 
sented in its own politicians, and tampering, by its seductions and 
bribes, with ours, is always sufficient to determine who the Presi- 
dent shall be. We send thirty-two Senators to make part of the 
appointing power ; but their thirty colleagues, who have always 
one object steadily in view, can always secure enough of them to 
turn their own little less than half, into a majority. We send Repre- 
sentatives ; but Representatives are apt to think they have not yet 
got high enough, and the appointing and patronizing power always 
holds enough of them in its leash to make sure that its policy shall 
prevail. The Federal Judiciary — supreme, for important pur- 
poses, over that of the States — already presurries, by one of its 
organs, to re-establish Slavery in Free States, and issues its lettre dc 
cachet for the unlimited imprisonment of a citizen of the North for 
the ridiculously alleged contempt of truly testifying that he has not 
had an escaped slave in his custody. While Executive, Legislature, 
and Judiciary are thus retained, scattered all over the country there 
are capable and active and aspiring and avaricious men whom the 
unscrupulous dispensers of public trusts and of the public treasure 
4 



26 LETTER TO 

engage to do their work, by speech and pen, in blinding the too 
unsuspicious people, and so fortifying and perpetuating the odious 
misrule. 

The Aristocracy, which, working by these instrumentalities, has 
planted its foot upon our necks, is what we call the Slave Poxoer. 
We mean to oust it from the seat of authority of which it has 
usurped possession, and make this nation again in reality, as it is in 
form and name, a Republic. And therefore it is that the name Re- 
publicans is our appropriate designation. As politicians, this is that 
" one idea " of ours, in which some men who imagine themselves 
capable of two ideas, and of putting two ideas together, find so much 
scope for impertinent garrulity. Platforms, made of a little of 
everything that the last day's ferment has brought to the surface, — 
a sort of drag-net for humorsome voters, — are a modern invention 
in political transactions, and should take out an American patent. 
Whig, Tory, in England, — Federal, Democratic, in earlier America, 
— which of these names, or of any others that have moved multi- 
tudes of earnest men in the dignified contests of politics, ever stood 
for more than one central idea, collecting, marshalling, and inspir- 
ing the combination ? Our " one idea " is, to break and batter down 
the crafty, impudent, and tyrannous Slave Power, to displace the 
Aristocracy, and rewsiafe the Republic, — that republic which the 
Constitution contemplated and organized. That done, — the free 
people of the United States having recovered their legitimate func- 
tions, — they will be in a condition to entertain those questions of 
detail which belong to the wise administration of the government 
agreeably to its republican spirit, and Mr. Choate will have to wait 
but little for an answer to his anxious inquiries respecting " diplo- 
macy," and so on. 

I write as a Conservative. And I insist that this is true conservative 
ground. The conservation of Republican freedom is the Conserva- 
tism of a Republic. It requires some patience to hear those who dis- 
cern how wide has been the departure from the original principles 
of this government, and how extreme is the necessity of reverting 
without delay to the original track, prated of as innovators and ex- 
perimenters by men of whom the best that can be said is that they 
know nothing of what they are about. If we were not strangely 
urged to such strange doings, we should look on it as nothing short 
of the insanity of stupid arrogance for a room-full of gentlemen, from 
State Street and thereabouts, to take the cars of a morning for Wor- 



A WHIG NEIGHBOR. 27 

cester, there to proclaim and resolve that they are " untirino' advo- 
cates of Liberty, of the Constitution, and of the Union," and that 
" the success in a national election of a Northern party, based upon 
the single issue of opposition to Slavery, must put the existence of 
the Union in peril." The peril of the Union, such as it is, threatens 
it from a very different source from that on which their purblind 
vision is fixed. The fool and coward quails before the phantom his 
imagination has conjured up. The wise man looks through the 
misty nothing to the real danger beyond. Should the time come for 
the Union of these States to be dissolved, it will be found to coincide 
with the time when the abuses of the American Constitution by the 
despotic Slave Power in the Southern States, and its allies in the 
Northern, have made its rule intolerable. The men who aid and 
abet, or who countenance, shield, or palliate these abuses, — they are 
the innovators, — they are the Destructives ; and the proper business 
of a patriotic Conservatism at the present day is to see that that pro- 
cess of abuse which has been going on for half a generation in a 
swiftly accelerating ratio is forthwith obstructed and reversed. 

If ever you mean to do a good citizen's part in this indispensably 
needful work, now is your time. The Republican party, which has 
undertaken it, is auspiciously inaugurated. The great State of Ohio, 
where, against immense odds, it has just carried the State election, 
placing a tried champion of Republican Freedom in the executive 
chair, is looking with earnest hope for the approval and alliance of 
Massachusetts. Wisconsin and New York, in a generous emulation, 
are to bear their testimony for freedom on the same day with our- 
selves. Bitter were it, if Massachusetts were to be missed out of the 
faithful sisterhood, when history comes to count the patriotic States 
of 1855. 

Wishing you the blessings of a good judgment for the day of 
election, and a self-approving mind after it, 

I am your fellow-citizen and friend. 



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